How I Write

Anything habitual that we do is devoid of mystery to ourselves, naturally. I suppose that’s why it feels surprising when people ask me about my work habits and even more surprising when they seem to find my answers interesting. In this month’s blog I explain a little bit about my personal approach to writing, how long a novel takes to write and how I go about it. As always, if you want to message me about anything here, you’ll find my email address on the Contact page.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO WRITE A NOVEL?

I’m often asked this and the short answer to is “about four or five months” to knock out a pretty solid first draft. The longer answer is - “it depends”. If I have an idea for a novel, and I’m able to write without interruption, then I can write about 80,000 words in four months, and 80,000 words means I’ve reached the end, or the end is in sight. I aim for at least 1,000 words a day, Monday to Friday, which is 5,000 words a week, 20,000 a month, etc. For those who don’t know, a novel must contain at least 70,000 words, but is often longer.

When I say this is possible for me as long as I can write “without interruption”, I mean as long as there aren’t any unexpected family issues (such as my son breaking his leg, my mum breaking her hip) and as long as I don’t take on a part-time job. Like any writer (maybe there are exceptions but I don’t know any), I am constantly interrupted by the telephone, social media, the need to make cups of tea, the laundry, the doorbell, biscuits, anything really. Oh look – there’s a butterfly … [this is where I wander off and return ten minutes later, wondering what I was doing before].

Currently, I’m able to treat writing like a job, not everyone can. When I wrote Space Hopper, I worked part-time at the local college, but I still wrote it in about five months. I was frightened I’d get hit by a bus before I managed to write the ending, and I was desperate to write that ending once I’d thought of it.

James Joyce

DO I GET WRITERS BLOCK?

A thousand words is not a lot of words - not if you know what you want to say. Sustaining a thousand words every day can be difficult, and writing a thousand good ones every day is far from easy. In Stephen King’s book, ON WRITING, he recounts the story of a friend of James Joyce who visited the Irish author and found him miserable, sprawled over his desk at the end of a day of writing. The conversation went something like this:

Friend: James, what’s wrong? Is it the work?
James Joyce: (nods in despair)
Friend: How many words did you get today?
James Joyce: Seven.
Friend: But James…. that’s good, at least for you.
James Joyce: Yes, I suppose it is…. but I don’t know what order they go in!

I love this quote, because it takes the pressure off the concept that ultimate success equates to efficient productivity. Luckily – for my own mental health – I’m not as much of a perfectionist as James Joyce, so I don’t beat myself up too much.

When I sit down to write my (at least) 1,000 words, I almost always know roughly what I’m going to write. Once I finish writing for the day, I put to one side what I’ve already written and then my mind is in a constant state of preparation for the next bit, so that when I sit down the next day, I know roughly where I’m going again. I will often write a whole chapter in one sitting and, usually towards the end, I start writing bigger chunks, sometimes between 2,000 and 4,000 words a day.

Now and then I sit at my computer with no clue whatsoever about what to type. When this first happened I was terrified, but experience has taught me a surprising tactic that seems to work; it sounds too simple to be true, but I show up to my desk and I write pretty much anything; I just start typing. When I first did this, I assumed I would end up deleting it all, but in fact quite the opposite happened, I’ve never deleted any of the work I’ve done under those conditions. In fact, those chapters ended up being some of my favourites. I have written about seven novels, two of which have been published (one to be published later this year), and I always face the same dilemma at 30,000 words. At, or around, the 30,000 word point I tend to lose the plot, pardon the pun etc. I become overwhelmed with the sense that I can’t do this and yet I know that I reach this point every time, and I do manage, somehow, to get back to my desk and do it. I don’t know why this happens, I only know I’m not alone. My theory is that I’m too far in to go back or stop, but I’ve still got further to go than I’ve already come. It feels like an uphill battle. It is at this stage especially, I make sure I show up to the desk and write, no matter how I feel about it. As the brilliant Anne Tyler said:

“If I waited till I felt like writing, I'd never write at all.”

WHEN DO I WRITE?

I prefer to write in the mornings, preferably after a walk and with a coffee on my desk, even if I don’t want it. While I’m typing I try to remember to have an online thesaurus open, otherwise I find myself repeatedly typing the words “another word for …” into the internet, grappling for those words my mind won’t give me.

I make notes in a lined - preferably A3-sized - notebook. I like a very bendy notebook. Occasionally if I get an idea while I’m typing about something else, I’ll start scribbling the new ideas before they escape me. If I’m driving when I have ideas, which happens a lot, I’ll telephone myself and record the idea into my hands-free.

My favourite writing tool of all is The Grid, a version of an idea I spotted on social media years ago. I can write without it, but it’s so useful as an incentive. On my office flipchart I draw an eighty-square grid and put a number in each square – 1-80, and for every 1,000 words that I write, I colour in a square, a different colour each consecutive day, so they don’t blend in, and that helps me see the progress I’m making, even when I feel like I’m going backwards.

When I’ve finished writing for the day, my brain feels tired in an indescribable way. It is a kind of weariness that is distinctly different from any other kinds of tired that I’ve felt and I’ve wondered why that is - what part of me is getting worn out with inventing stories? I admit I feel quite guilty when I practically keel over and need to lay down in a dark room to recover, when other people seem to be working so much harder, but it’s something I just can’t help.